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IN ENGLEWOOD, HOPE IN EMPTY LOTS A nonpro t is building two- and three- at a ordable housing in an attempt to stabilize the neighborhood BY DENNIS RODKIN

IN A SECTION OF ENGLEWOOD where there are more Nancy Hughes Moyer vacant lots than homes on many blocks, a Chica- is president and go social services nonpro t plans to build 16 new CEO of Volunteers of two- and three- ats as the next step in its years- America Illinois. long e ort to stabilize and rebuild a portion of the neighborhood. See ENGLEWOOD on Page 14 TODD WINTERS TODD The Kochs come to Is Griffin shopping a town, with an agenda piece of his business? A gift from conservative funders sparks boardroom Billionaire hedge fund founder could pursue debate at Chicago Council on Global A airs The council’s president, Ivo Daalder, is a a sell-high philosophy as he looks to the future the Koch Foundation to back former U.S. ambassador to NATO and an alum the Citadel CEO and founder had BY STEVEN R. STRAHLER BY LYNNE MAREK research into the concept of “re- of the liberal-leaning Brookings Institution. been in talks with asset manage- ree years ago the Chicago straint” in U.S. foreign policy, just Ken Gri n’s Citadel and Cita- ment colossus Blackstone Group Council on Global A airs was as American forces were abrupt- with the globalist mindset of the del Securities have been on a roll, about one of its funds buying a named the top think tank to ly being withdrawn from Syria, council. e council’s president, even as the hedge fund industry minority stake in his businesses. watch because of an intensi ed threatening the Middle East with Ivo Daalder, is a former U.S. am- shrinks and trading rivals stum- A person familiar with the situa- focus on megacities, food securi- further instability. bassador to NATO and an alum ble. Citadel’s hedge fund assets tion who asks not to be identi ed ty and other topics not tradition- e Koch Foundation’s politi- of the liberal-leaning Brookings have grown to about $32 billion con rms that the two companies ally associated with foreign pol- cal orientation triggered a point- Institution. under management since a near had discussed the possibility, as icy agendas. But that ambition ed boardroom debate within Founded nearly a century ago collapse in 2008, and Citadel Se-  rst reported Oct. 12 by the Wall is stirring tension as the council the council. Koch Foundation in the wake of World War I as the curities has had strong pro ts. Street Journal. taps new funding sources to fuel founders Charles and the late Chicago Council on Foreign Re- So why would Gri n consider e talks ended without a deal, its growth. David Koch have been known for lations, the civic-spirited body selling part of his business? but Gri n entertaining a bid The council this month dis- climate-change denial and oth- e hedge fund industry was closed a $1.9 million grant from er conservative causes at odds See GLOBAL on Page 14 rocked by the news recently that See CITADEL on Page 41

NEWSPAPER l VOL. 42, NO. 42 l COPYRIGHT 2019 CRAIN COMMUNICATIONS INC. l ALL RIGHTS RESERVED JOE CAHILL UNITED CENTER Exelon and ComEd We sit down with the have discovered arena’s owners to the downside reflect on 25 years of of successful Exelon CEO growth and what’s Chris Crane lobbying. PAGE 4 next. PAGE 8 14 OCTOBER 21, 2019 • CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS Turning vacant lots into affordable housing Koch gift sparks debate

ENGLEWOOD from Page 1 of Englewood revitalization three e mix sounds right for Engle- GLOBAL from Page1 liated Charles Koch Institute, blocks south. At 63rd and Halsted wood, says Perdure Carter, an agent says that while the foundation “If I were a kid walking through streets, Englewood Square includes with Dream Spots Leasing who focus- acted as a counterweight to Mid- isn’t isolationist, it’s interested in here to the Nicholson school, and a Whole Foods store that opened in es on the neighborhood. He has no in- western isolationism personi- a “more prudential” foreign poli- 60 percent of what I’m walking past 2016, a Starbucks and other retail- volvement with the project. ed by Chicago Tribune pub- cy of “restraint, realism.” In short, is vacant or abandoned, what does ers that have been like a welcome “Renters in Englewood want to lisher Robert McCormick. Its it favors less military interven- it do to the psyche of that kid?” says downpour in the retail desert. Plans live in smaller buildings instead of a New York counterpart publishes tion abroad while backing trade Nancy Hughes Moyer, president announced in 2018 included a courtyard building,” Carter says, “be- Foreign Aairs magazine and and diplomacy. and CEO of Volunteers of America phase to the north, nearly connect- cause you know who your neighbors remains the epitome of what’s To advance this cause, since Illinois. “We want to bring rooftops ing to VOAI’s improvement zone. are. It’s not like living with 40 dier- left of the Eastern Establish- 2015 it has poured more than back to these blocks.” “Filling in the gaps is what’s go- ent personalities,” which he says is ment. (In 1950, during the Ko- $25 million into academic insti- VOAI plans to break ground in ing to make a dierence in the lives fraught with risk in an area where the rean conict, the Chicago Tri- tutions, including the University December on some of the 16 lots it of people in Englewood,” Hughes problem of violence is acute. bune said its members had led of Notre Dame, the New York acquired Oct. 16 for $1 each from Moyer says. Filling in vacant lots with new con- the country toward “bankruptcy Times reported last month. A the city of Chicago. All within a six- struction will help nearby properties and military debacle.”) new think tank, the Quincy In- block area of Peoria, Green and San- STABILITY such as the two-at greystone Carter e purpose of the Koch grant stitute for Responsible Statecraft, gamon streets, the scattered lots are While VOAI, founded in 1896, is has listed for sale at $160,000 on San- is isolationist-tinged, calling for attracted $460,000 in Koch mon- within a block and a half of Hope at its base a social services group gamon Street just outside the Hope research into alternatives to mil- ey as well as a donation from Manor II, a 73-unit rental complex and not a developer or landlord, Manor Village zone. itary intervention abroad. It will liberal George Soros—“a sign of for veterans and their families that Hughes Moyer says, “we know “e major reason people don’t buy fund a “senior fellow” and an as- how seriously the Trump presi- VOAI opened in October 2014 at that whatever other problems you in Englewood is violence,” Carter says, sistant over ve years to recom- dency has shaken up tradition- 6002 S. Halsted St. have, making sure you have stable “but next after that is the vacant lots mend policy options. al enmities and alliances,” the “e goal is to be lling in the housing is part of solving them.” and boarded-up properties. Nobody “I can completely understand newspaper said. blocks and creating density in this e group operates two other rent- wants to invest in a neighborhood why that would get some hackles Christopher Leonard, au- part of the neighborhood,” Hughes al housing facilities for veterans, in where people just litter and loiter.” up,” says Howard Tien, a retired thor of the recently published Moyer says. e group’s plan is for Humboldt Park and Joliet, with a In the late 20th and early 21st centu- fund manager who has been as- “Kochland: e Secret History the 16 new multi-at rentals, togeth- combined total, including the En- ries, Englewood was one of the neigh- sociated with the council for de- of Koch Industries and Corpo- er called Hope Manor Village, to glewood facility, of 220 units. borhoods hit hardest by disinvestment cades. rate Power in America,” argues soon be complemented by a round e 33 apartments in Hope Man- and decline. en came the housing that the Kochs’ bipartisanship of rehabs of residential buildings, or Village, all two-bedrooms, will crisis of the mid-2000s. In 2008, at the FOUNDATION SUPPORT is illusory. “At the end of the many of them now boarded-up fore- not be exclusively for veterans but height of the foreclosure crisis, 1 in 10 Under Daalder, fundraising day, the vast majority of their closures, into for-sale housing. at will be open to all renters who meet properties in Englewood were in fore- has surged, nearly doubling to political inuence, repower will be a partnership with Neighbor- the city’s income standards for af- closure, according to the Institute for $14.5 million in scal 2018 from and donations is focused on hood Housing Services of Chicago, a fordable housing. at’s a little less Housing Studies at DePaul University. when he arrived in 2013, while issues that aect their busi- nonpro t that promotes homeown- than $27,000 for a family of four, at was the highest in the city and overall revenue is up 50 percent, ness. It all ts in with the view ership in city neighborhoods. who Hughes Moyer says are the like- came when 2.9 of every 100 properties to $21.6 million. of where they’ve been trying As the phases of the plan radiate ly tenants of a two-bedroom. Rents citywide were in foreclosure. e council has leaned on the to push American politics for out from Hope Manor II, they may will average $800 a month, she says, Drugs, crime and violence swept Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation more than 40 years.” intersect with improvements radi- and the rst units should be ready in, and forced demolitions of derelict for almost $10 million, mainly for Daalder says, “I don’t think ating out from another focal point for occupancy by summer. buildings surged. e result is a land- its food and agriculture initiative, it’s a bad idea to have multiple scape that has so many empty spaces with another multimillion-dollar voices about America’s role in that this city neighborhood often looks grant to be announced, Daalder the world. Maybe after 70 years more unbuilt than built. says. e hometown McCormick of an expansive U.S. engagement Englewood has the most vacant and MacArthur foundations are in the world, we should have a lots in the city. ey present “an op- other mainstays, supporting debate about this. e (Koch) portunity for us to help some of the the council’s global cities proj- foundation allows us to take that families out there have a nice, af- ect and, recently, Black Chicago debate on the road and into the fordable place to raise a family,” says Tomorrow. In scal 2018, the Midwest as a public service.” Kevin Freeman, a VOAI staer who’s Rockefeller Foundation was the /RRNLQJIRUDUHOLDEOHĆQDQFLDOSDUWQHU overseeing much of the Hope Man- biggest donor, at $1 million. ‘MUCH MORE INFLUENTIAL’ or Village work. And, Hughes Moyer Daalder, meanwhile, has William Obenshain, executive in Chicagoland’s ever-changing says, lling empty lots means “you’re turned to conservative foun- director of DePaul University’s banking environment? not displacing people who are here.” dations, including the Mil- Center for Financial Services, e notion of intentionally avoiding waukee-based Lynde & Harry says Daalder has turned the displacement shows “they want the Bradley Foundation (which re- council into a “much more inu- existing community to bene t,” says jected grant applications from ential, midcontinent think tank.” Michael Johnson, project manager for the council in 2014 and 2016). irty- ve years ago, says Tien, the Englewood quality-of-life plan- e Koch relationship began “it wasn’t much more than a su- ning initiative at Teamwork Engle- with underwriting a $60,000 percharged book club.” wood. While he hasn’t been involved opinion survey last year on mil- e think tank survey, by the with VOAI, he says, other parts of lennial attitudes toward foreign University of Pennsylvania’s Teamwork Englewood provided feed- policy and a $180,000 trade study Lauder Institute, ranked the back on the Hope Manor Village con- released this year. council No. 145 overall last year cept. Another hopeful sign is that the “We’re trying to raise more among 8,000 organizations it $800-a-month rents “aren’t greedy,” money in order to continue to surveys. he says. “ey come in at the lower grow,” says Daalder, who ramped Daalder stresses the council’s end of what you can do when you’re up the council’s digital and com- nonpartisan thrust but isn’t shy Providing commercial banking using tax credits.” munications operations to pub- about taking sides, penning a to area businesses since 1964. VOAI is in negotiations to construct licize research and opinion sur- recent Tribune op-ed, “Trump’s a commercial building, on Halsted veys. “I’m in Rwanda,” he says by empty threats weaken the U.S. immediately south of Hope Manor II, phone. “ey know us here.” and embolden enemies,” and that will house a day care center, t- Daalder and several other co-authoring a book, “e Emp- ness center and its own headquarters. directors con rm that Koch’s ty rone: America’s Abdication VOAI will move from its current oce latest grant raised boardroom of Global Leadership.” space on Polk Street in the South Loop. concerns, less over the source “e council is nonpartisan— Stephen Clingen e group hopes to start construction of the money than how it was to it’s independent—but the peo- SVP/Commercial Group Head by late 2020 and have it complete by be treated, they say. “I insisted, ple who work there have points [email protected] early 2022, when its Polk Street lease and (Koch agreed), wherever the of view,” he says. “When I was is up. funding was coming from, we hired, it was not a secret I had 630.570.7642 Developing the multi-at buildings want control. I don’t want them been a political appointee by is a $10 million project, Hughes Moy- involved.” President Obama. ey knew er says. It will be nanced primarily “at was the commitment to what they were getting. I have a via low-income tax credit allocations the entire board,” says director voice for them I use.” by the Illinois Housing Development Fay Hartog-Levin, an ambassa- And now, more money to use, Authority, she says. If this phase and dor to the Netherlands under too. the rehab-to-sell phase succeed, the President Barack Obama. “ere “is is not a one-o relation-

RBankChicago.com NMLS ID 800.526.9127 group may build more. “But we hope was a full discussion of it.” ship,” says the Koch Founda- #405488 that others who see what we’ve done William Ruger, a Koch Foun- tion’s Ruger, citing its previous will be encouraged to come in and do dation adviser and vice president grants. “So, this is the next step in it, too,” she says. for research and policy at the af- that relationship.”